Starting today, December 26th, all of our used CDs, DVDs, Books and Vinyl are 25% off! We’re trying to make room in our racks for even more great stuff we’ve got stored away. This sale will run through the end of the year, so make sure to stop by and pick up some great deals!

Do you like music?

Yeah?

Do you like free stuff?

Oh, yeah?

Well…you might want to stop in and take a look through our Blue Tag CD Sale. We’ve got a large and ever-expanding selection of catalog and newer albums, all priced $7.99 to $9.99. When you buy any of these blue-tagged CDs, you’ll get one of our nifty stamp cards to keep track of your purchases — once you buy 5, you’ll get any blue-tag CD for free!

Just got in a shipment of great vinyl, including a limited number of new titles from Mississippi Records:

Marisa Anderson – The Golden Hour
Solo instrumental improvisational blues guitar & lapsteel recordings from Portland, OR, released in 2009. A store favorite!

Abner Jay – True Story of Abner Jay
Gritty blues & folk music from the 60s/70s

Abner Jay – Last Ole Minstrel Man
10″ EP of his last recordings

Various Artists – Brass Pins and Match Heads
International 78s from the 1930s to the 1950s that includes artists of the likes of Django Reinhardt and Jelly Roll Morton, as well as music from Spain, Iran, New Orleans and Omaha

Various Artists – Ishilan N’Tenere (Guitar Music from the Western Sahel)
Contemporary recordings from West Africa

Kleenex/LiLiPUT (4-LP Box Set)
All-girl punk/postpunk group from Switzerland circa late 70s/early 80s

We’ve also recently put out a ton of great used books, so if you’re down on Main St., stop by and browse our shelves!

USED BOOKS: PAPERBACKS – 25¢ HARDCOVERS – 50¢

USED CDs and DVDs: $1.99 each or 2 for $3! (items over $7.99 are 50% OFF)

NEW CDs and DVDs: 50% OFF lowest marked price! (excludes Special Orders and Consignment items)

NEW LPs: 15% OFF!

We’re open all weekend:

Friday 1/14 :  11am to 8pm
Saturday 1/15:  10am to 8pm
Sunday 1/16:  11am to 5pm

After this weekend, we will be closed for the rest of January to continue our renovations until we reopen in February (…haven’t heard? Read here for more info!)

During the Sale we will not be taking in buy-backs and trade-ins, but you can absolutely use your Trade Credit and Gift Certificates!

We hope to see you this weekend!

To all of our friends and valued customers: greetings and happy holidays!

If you have not heard, changes are coming to Rainbow Music & Books! As some of you have expressed various concerns to us about this, we would like to take a minute to let you know about the upcoming plans for our (and your!) store.
Over the next couple of months, Rainbow Music & Books will be renovating and moving to the back half of our current retail space at 54 E. Main Street, making room for Switch Skate & Snow (currently located at 16 Haines Street) to move into the front half of the store. In the process of doing this, we will be announcing several special sales and promotions, which will be advertised and announced via our e-mail list (subscribe on our website, www.rainbow-online.com) and our Facebook/Twitter pages.
No major changes will happen until after the start of the New Year. We will be closed for renovations and shifting and sorting of inventory for most of January. Look for special hours of operation (and some pretty incredible sales!). We have a projected grand re-opening date (for both Rainbow and Switch) of February 1, 2011.
Upon re-opening, we will continue to offer an extensive selection of new & used CDs, LPs, DVDs & books, and will continue our special order services at no extra cost. Further, all gift certificates and trade credit will remain valid and acceptable (unless, of course, you lose them!), and we will still be accepting trade-ins.
Though the floor space will be smaller, this move will allow us (in spite of the difficult economy and a difficult industry) to continue to serve the community as we have since 1978. We are all very excited and enthusiastic about this move, and if you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask any of the staff.

You might not be aware that one of the world’s highly acclaimed Jazz guitar composers and teachers lives not too far from our neck of the woods. Chuck Anderson has been teaching and performing guitar for the last 40 years. He has written a ton of material of how to learn jazz guitar, has released a number of albums over the years with the Chuck Anderson Trio, and has recently been performing live again after several years of dealing with a condition known as “sleep apnea“.

Over the past 6 months Chuck has built a website full of resources for guitarists hoping to learn more about their art, whether it’s learning about the fundamentals of guitar or comparing jam bands to jazz guitar. Chuck has a very fresh and interesting take on what the guitar really is, and how the jazz guitar is often mistaken by the general public due to the heavy influence from other instruments (such as the sax) on the perception of jazz music.

You can stream Chuck’s new album, “Freefall”, above and if you like what you hear swing by the store and pick up a copy!

Menomena (pronounced /mɨˈnɒmɨnə/) is an indie rock band from Portland, Oregon, United States; made up of Brent Knopf, Justin Harris, and Danny Seim. All members of the band share singing duties and frequently swap instruments while recording. – Menomena @ Wikipedia

Their much-anticipated latest release is titled Mines, will be in the shop Tuesday, July 27th. Here’s a free download to hold you over until then.

Stop in and check out the featured titles in this month’s Headbanger Wall Listening Post!

Canadian rock outfit Wolf Parade has just released their third full length album, Expo 86, and so far everyone seems to really like it. If you are unfamiliar with the band, they are a 4 piece indie rock band, whose members are all involved in other projects in addition to Wolf Parade, including Atlas Strategic and the Handsome Furs.

Some of the band’s contemporaries include Arcade Fire, Tokyo Police Club, and Clap You Hands Say Yeah – if you’re into any of them, give Wolf Parade a listen.

Wolf Parade – Expo 86
CD $11.99
Listen/Download

The band’s 2008 debut, Antidotes, delivered on the early promise of their cool-yet-frenetic style. But the widescreen production from TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek hinted at the limitations of their approach – something, you felt, would have to give for Foals to step things up a notch.

Their answer on Total Life Forever is to relax the binary plotting of their punk-funk jams and punch up the pop factor. If this all sounds distressingly unlike the future, that’s because it is. But we needn’t fret: the trick here is to locate a beating heart, the missing Z to their rigorous X and Y axes, without losing sight of what made them so exciting in the first place.

Read More >>

Download the new album or swing by and pick it up!